Alpha Phi Alpha

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. (ΑΦΑ) is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved into a fraternity with a founding date of December 4, 1906. It employs an icon from Ancient Egypt, the Great Sphinx of Giza, as its symbol. Its aims are "Manly Deeds, Scholarship, and Love For All Mankind," and its motto is "First of All, Servants of All, We Shall Transcend All." Its archives are preserved at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.

Chapters were chartered at Howard University and Virginia Union University in 1907. The fraternity has over 290,000 members and has been open to men of all races since 1945. Currently, there are more than 730 active chapters in the Americas, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and Asia. It is the largest predominantly African-American intercollegiate fraternity and one of the ten largest intercollegiate fraternities in the nation.

Alpha Phi Alpha is a social organization with a service organization mission and provided leadership and service during the Great Depression, World Wars, and Civil Rights Movement. The fraternity addresses social issues such as apartheid, AIDS, urban housing, and other economic, cultural, and political issues of interest to people of color. National programs and initiatives of the fraternity include A Voteless People Is a Hopeless People, My Brother's Keeper, Go To High School, Go To College, Project Alpha, and the World Policy Council. It also conducts philanthropic programming initiatives with the March of Dimes, Head Start, the Boy Scouts of America, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

Members of this fraternity include many historical civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., NAACP founder W. E. B. Du Bois, John Mack, Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, Rev. C.T. Vivian, and Dick Gregory. Other members include political activist Cornel West, musicians Duke Ellington, Donny Hathaway, and Lionel Richie, NBA player Walt Frazier, NFL player Charles Haley, Jamaican Prime Minister Norman Manley, Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens, Justice Thurgood Marshall, businessman Robert F. Smith, United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young, and film director Barry Jenkins.

Alpha Phi Alpha was directly responsible for the conception, funding, and construction of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial next to the National Mall in Washington, D.C.